GENERAL  FOCH 

THE  MAN  OF  THE  HOUR 
BY  MAJOR  R.  M.  JOHNSTON 


The  first  authentic  account  of  the  life  of  the  famous 
AIHed  Commander  under  whom  our  soldiers  are 
fighting,  written  by  one  of  America's  most  emi- 
nent historians. 


S  36X 


Ctow:*  363- 


lb 


GENERAL  FOCH 

j4n  Appretnation 


GENERAL  FOCH 


THE  MAN  OF  THE  HOUR 


BY 

MAJOR  ROBERT  M.  JOHNSTON 

U.S.NA. 


A.  L.  BURT  COMPANY,  PUBLISHERS 
1  14-  120  East  Twenty-third  Street      -     -     New  York 

PUBLISHED   BY   ARRANGEMENT  WITH    HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,    I918,    BY    ROBERT    M.  JOHNSTON 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  July  t()i8 


TO 

OUR  BRAVE  COMRADES  OF 

THE 

FRENCH   ARMY 


CONTENTS 

I.  Youth 1 

II.   The  Teacher  and  Theorist  ....  8 

III.  The  War 28 

IV.  The  Present  Crisis 48 


GENERAL  FOCH 
I 

YOUTH 

As  THESE  words  are  written,  early  in  May, 
1918,  all  eyes  in  the  Western  World  are  fixed 
on  Ferdinand  Foch.  All  eyes  are  fixed  on  the 
generalissimo  of  the  decimated  and  decimating 
host  fighting  to  withstand  the  renewed,  and  as 
yet  the  most  dangerous,  thrust  of  the  Teutons. 
The  least  error,  the  least  faltering,  and  neither 
judgment  nor  courage  may  possibly  ever  avail 
again.  The  eye,  the  brain,  the  heart  of  a  single 
man  must  pierce  and  must  master  this  crisis. 
And  Foch  is  that  man,  by  the  acclamation  of 
the  French  Army. 

More  than  that.  Foch  is  the  typical  French 
soldier.  In  him  there  live  again  the  Christian 
faith  and  serene  fearlessness  of  Bayard,  sans 
peur  et  sans  reproche ;  the  continuous  intellectual 
effort,  the  will,  the  power  to  learn,  of  Turenne ; 
the  tirelessness  and  dependability  of  that  prince 

[  1  ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

of  subordinates,  Desaix;  the  clarity,  brevity, 
and  force  of  that  most  briUiant  of  military  styl- 
ists, Ardant  du  Picq.  Something  of  all  these 
heroes  may  be  found  in  Foch;  the  enemies  of 
France  have  already  discovered  it. 

He  was  born  on  the  4th  of  August,  1851,  at 
Tarbes,  a  little  city  in  the  Pyrenees,  where  his 
father  held  an  administrative  post.  It  was  only 
a  few  weeks  later  that  Louis  Bonaparte  put 
through  his  successful  coup  d'etat ;  and  the  youth 
of  the  future  commander-in-chief  of  the  French 
armies  was  therefore  passed  during  the  brief 
period  in  which  the  Second  Empire  attempted 
to  reproduce  the  military  glories  of  the  First. 
War  followed  war  at  intervals  almost  as  rapid 
as  during  the  reign  of  the  Great  Napoleon. 
Their  scale  was  less,  however;  there  was  not 
behind  them,  as  had  been  the  case  half  a  cen- 
tury earlier,  splendid  causes  and  great  ideas; 
and  they  ended  in  a  disaster  which  had  little  to 
redeem  it,  as  had  the  heroic  struggle  of  the 
first  Emperor  in  1812-15.  The  heartrending 
collapse  of  France  at  Metz  and  Sedan  came 

[2] 


YOUTH 

just  a  few  months  too  early  in  the  life  of  Foch 
for  him  to  participate  in  these  events ;  but  mili- 
tary impressions  were  constantly  before  him 
during  his  school  years,  and  the  strongest  im- 
pression of  all  came  just  at  the  moment  when 
the  military  career  was  opening  before  him. 

His  education  was  obtained  in  provincial 
cities,  at  Rodez,  at  Saint- fitienne,  and  at  Metz, 
so  soon  afterwards  to  be  the  scene  of  Bazaine's 
tragedy.  In  1867,  at  Saint-Etienne,  he  came 
under  the  influence  of  clerical  teachers,  and  it 
may  be  that  it  was  then  that  he  formed  those 
strictly  religious  habits  which  he  has  main- 
tained and  that  are  quite  distinctive  of  the 
man.^  At  Metz  he  prepared  for  the  ficole 
Poly  technique,  which  he  entered  in  1871.  Dur- 
ing the  whole  course  of  his  education  he  showed 
a  marked  talent  for  precise  studies,  such  as 
geometry  and  logic ;  and  he  was  early  marked 
out  by  his  teachers  as  showing  unusual  promise 
along  those  lines.  On  the  other  hand,  he  dis- 
played the  enthusiasm  which  was  so  current  in 

'  For  this  and  other  details  of  a  similar  character  our  source 
is  an  admirable  article  in  the  Correspondant^  March,  191 5. 

[3] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

those  days  for  the  history  of  the  Napoleonic 
epoch. 

It  is  not  generally  realized  how  well-defined 
a  period  there  is  in  the  history  of  France  dur- 
ing which  there  coursed  a  great  wave  of  na- 
tionalistic sentiment,  based  on  the  achievements 
of  the  heroes  of  the  Revolution  and  the  Em- 
pire. After  Waterloo,  for  nearly  twenty  years, 
it  was  almost  impossible  even  to  mention  the 
name  of  Napoleon  in  conversation;  and  the 
period  contrasted  in  its  drabness  and  pettiness 
with  the  catastrophic  period  which  had  just 
closed.  Then,  almost  suddenly,  in  the  thirties, 
the  bars  were  raised,  and  for  twenty  years  the 
romantic  writers,  poets,  historians,  and  novelists 
let  loose  their  imagination  and  their  sometimes 
too  vivid  colors,  on  the  deeds  which  they  de- 
clared had  immortalized  France.  Thiers*  great 
romance,  the  **  History  of  the  Consulate  and 
the  Empire,"  Victor  Hugo's  resonant  periods, 
Michelet's  fervid  patriotism  and  eloquence,  all 
these,  and  others  besides,  had  created  a  new 
spirit  by  means  of  a  literature  of  the  most  in- 
tense appeal.  And  a  schoolboy  with  the  echoes 

[4] 


YOUTH 

of  the  guns  of  Sebastopol  and  Solferino  ringing 
in  his  ears,  if  he  had  a  shred  of  imagination,  a 
shred  of  courage,  a  shred  of  generosity  in  his 
make-up,  could  not  but  devour  such  books. 
This  was  inevitably  what  Foch  did.  He  was 
brought  up  on  the  campaigns  of  Bonaparte,  as 
related  by  these  writers.  And  at  the  v^ery  mo- 
ment when  he  left  his  school-days  behind  him 
and  entered  into  the  arduous  career  of  arms, 
all  the  material  for  another  chapter  in  the  his- 
tory of  France  was  unfolded  before  his  eyes. 
But  that  chapter  did  not  lend  itself  to  the  pen 
of  a  Hugo,  or  a  Thiers,  or  a  Michelet.  Foch 
could  not  then  suspect  that  he  himself  would 
become  one  of  its  historians,  but  a  historian  of  a 
widely  different  type  from  Thiers,  or  Michelet, 
or  Taine. 

For  twenty-five  years  following  his  entrance 
into  the  ficole  Polytechnique  the  career  of  Foch 
offers  no  salient  feature.  He  passed  through 
various  garrisons  as  an  artillery  officer,  kept 
studying  his  profession,  was  promoted  rather 
quickly  to  the  rank  of  captain  in  1878,  and  in 
1884  was  admitted  to  the  £cole  de  Guerre  as 

[*  ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

a  student.  Twelve  years  later,  ranking  then 
as  a  major,  he  returned  to  the  £cole  de  Guerre 
as  an  instructor,  and  with  that  step  opened  an 
important  chapter  of  his  life.  For  the  teaching  of 
Foch  in  the  domain  of  military  history  and  theory 
was  to  sum  up  into  its  most  effective  form  the 
whole  doctrine  of  war  as  taught  to  the  French 
High  Command  and  Staff  for  a  generation  pre- 
vious to  the  present  conflict. 

Before  dealing  with  the  extraordinarily  inter- 
esting and  important  teaching  of  Foch  at  the 
ficole  de  Guerre,  it  may  be  as  well  to  conclude 
a  rapid  summary  of  his  army  career.  In  1901 
he  was  unexpectedly  removed  from  a  professor- 
ship in  which  he  had  shown  brilliant  powers  and 
a  great  influence  over  his  students,  and  sent  back 
to  the  line ;  he  was  at  that  time  lieutenant-colonel. 
The  period  was  a  bad  one  in  the  French  Army, 
following  the  Dreyfus  affair ;  and  many  deserv- 
ing officers  were  crossed  in  their  careers  for  no 
reasons  of  professional  validity.  Foch  was  one 
of  those  who  suffered,  though  he  did  not  per- 
sonally enter  into  any  of  the  controversies  of 
that  unhappy  period.   His  promotion,  however, 

[6] 


YOUTH 

was  unduly  delayed,  and  it  was  not  until  1 907 
that  he  became  brigadier-general.  In  this  rank 
he  commanded,  first  of  all,  the  artillery  of  the 
5th  Corps  at  Orleans ;  from  this  he  was  almost 
immediately  transferred  to  the  post  for  which 
he  was  preeminently  marked  out,  that  of  com- 
mandant of  the  ficole  de  Guerre.  There  he  im- 
mediately set  to  work  to  increase  the  efficiency 
of  that  institution  and  attempted,  notwithstand- 
ing the  somewhat  blind  opposition  of  the  French 
Parliament,  to  extend  the  period  of  instruction 
of  officers  to  three  years.  In  1911  he  was  given 
command  of  the  13th  Division  at  Chaumont; 
and  a  year  later  he  was  promoted  to  command 
the  8th  Corps.  Soon  after  he  was  transferred 
to  the  command  which  was  always  reckoned, 
in  the  period  before  the  war,  the  post  of  honor 
of  the  French  Army,  the  20th  Corps,  Head- 
quarters Nancy.  There  it  was  that  the  war  found 
him. 


II 

THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

The  subject-matter  of  the  teaching  of  Foch 
at  the  ficole  de  Guerre  is  technical  and  not  easily 
appreciable  or  interesting  for  the  general  public. 
Yet  it  is  impossible  to  pass  over  this  aspect  of 
his  life  without  some  sort  of  notice.  For  he  was 
the  great  teacher  who,  more  than  any  man  in 
the  French  Army,  created  the  mode  of  thought 
under  which  its  generals  and  Staff  entered  the 
present  war ;  his  portrait  would  be  wholly  inade- 
quate unless  this  side  of  the  man  were  brought 
out.  But  there  is  no  subject  studied  by  groups 
of  specialists  in  our  present  civilization  that  re- 
quires more  prolonged  effort  and  on  which  more 
depends  than  that  of  the  military  art  in  its  higher 
branches.  This  being  so,  the  reader  must  be 
asked  to  follow,  though  only  in  very  broad  out- 
line, a  statement  of  this  somewhat  special  ques- 
tion. 

Prior  to  the  period  when  Foch  entered  the 
ficole  de  Guerre  as  a  student,  there  was  no  such 

[8] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

thing  in  France  as  a  technical  study  of  the  higher 
branches  of  the  mihtary  art.  Young  men  were 
well  trained  for  entrance  into  the  Army  in  all 
its  branches ;  the  technique  of  engineering,  of 
artillery,  and  even  of  minor  tactics  in  some 
phases,  was  relatively  well  taught,  but  when  it 
came  to  handling  brigades  and  divisions  and 
army  corps,  and,  which  was  still  more  impor- 
tant, the  conduct  of  war  as  a  whole,  this  was 
relegated  to  the  workings  of  a  seniority  sys- 
tem, of  the  rule  of  thumb  and  the  dispensations 
of  Providence — on  the  whole  an  inadequate 
basis.  The  French  Army  had  paid  the  price 
for  this  neglect  in  1870.  Bazaine's  magnificent 
troops,  markedly  superior  to  the  Germans  as 
companies,  as  battalions,  as  regiments,  had  been 
thrown  away  because  the  brigadiers  and  divi- 
sional officers  were  none  too  good  and  because 
the  High  Command  and  Staff  were  absolutely 
ignorant  of  the  handling  of  masses.  And  the 
Army  knew  it.  After  the  war  was  over  the 
Army  was  determined  to  study  at  the  ficole  de 
Guerre  the  solution  of  the  problems  of  the  han- 
dling of  masses ;  and  to  solve  these  problems 

[9] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

the  best  plan  was  obviously  to  study  the  last 
military  demonstration  which  was  available.  This 
material  for  demonstration  was  naturally  found 
in  the  campaign  of  1870-71. 

Beginning  with  Major  Maillard,  whose  chair 
was  later  occupied  by  Foch,  the  professors  and 
students  of  the  ficole  de  Guerre  set  to  work  to 
study  what  really  had  happened  in  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War.  That  is,  they  studied  it  in  the 
professional  or  technical  sense,  not  in  terms  of 
patriotic  history  or  political  propaganda.  At  the 
same  time  it  proved  impossible  for  that  genera- 
tion of  Frenchmen  —  and  who  shall  blame  them  ? 
— to  retain  a  dispassionate  attitude  in  studying 
the  Germans.  With  whatever  detachment  the 
professors  of  the  £cole  de  Guerre  might  ana- 
lyze the  Prussian  manoeuvres  on  the  Moselle, 
on  the  Meuse,  or  about  Paris,  sooner  or  later  pa- 
triotism and  the  determination  to  regain  the  lost 
laurels  of  France  asserted  themselves.  To  them 
von  Moltke  could  never  be  merely  the  chemist 
fusing  his  materials  in  the  crucible  in  varying 
proportions ;  he  was  always  the  leader  of  that 
host  of  barbarian  enemies  that  had  torn  a  gaping 

[  10] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 
wound   through  Alsace-Lorraine  and    pierced 
France  to  the  heart. 

When  it  came  to  Foch's  turn  to  leave  the  stu- 
dent's bench  and  to  climb  into  the  professor's 
chair,  this  feature  of  the  teaching  at  the  ficole  de 
Guerre  became  even  more  marked.  Two  of  the 
courses  which  he  delivered  as  Professor  of  Mil- 
itary History  and  Theory  have  long  been  in 
print ; '  they  may  be  said  to  contain  the  most 
keen  and  subtle  analysis  of  von  Moltke's  oper- 
ations which  has  as  yet  appeared.  With  unerr- 
ing logic  Foch  searches  for  the  errors  of  the 
German  system  of  operations  and  of  the  Ger- 
man conduct  of  operations.  The  indictment  is 
complete  and  in  its  details  convincing.  As  a 
whole,  however,  it  falls  just  short  of  conviction, 
for  the  reason  that  by  the  time  that  Foch  has 
finished  with  von  Moltke,  there  is  nothing  what- 
ever left  of  the  German.  The  real  fact,  of  course, 
is  that  von  Moltke  was  an  innovator,  who  worked 

'  Principes  de  la  Guerre;  Conferences  h  F Ecole  Super ieure  de 
Guerre^  par  le  Colonel  d'Artillerie,  F.  Foch  (Paris,  1903); 
De  la  Conduite  de  la  Guerre^  La  Manoeuvre  pour  la  Bataille^ 
2^  Serie  dcs  Conferences  faites  a  l'£colc  Superieure  de 
Guerre,  par  le  Colonel  d'Artillerie,  F.  Foch.  (Paris,  1904.) 

[  n  ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

against  time,  and  who  in  1870  was  running  a 
new-fangled  machine  which  was  decidedly  crude 
at  many  points,  and  which,  faced  by  a  resolute 
opponent,  would  very  likely  have  broken  down 
altogether.  But  it  is  not  proposed  to  discuss 
here  the  technical  question  of  organization 
and  command  presented  by  the  campaign  of 
1870. 

In  the  study  of  the  operations  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  War,  Foch  sought  in  the  most  marked 
way  to  deduce  logical  lessons  on  which  could 
be  based  a  convincing,  clean-cut,  four-square 
theory  of  operations  for  the  new  French  Army. 
And,  as  has  already  been  indicated,  he  could  not 
orient  his  mind  in  any  such  way  as  to  look  to  a 
German  model.  He  did  better  than  that  by  go- 
ing straight  to  the  most  secure  basis  which  mili- 
tary thinkers  of  all  ages  and  countries  have  as 
yet  discovered  for  their  formulas,  and  that  is  the 
psychological  basis.  In  this,  however,  it  may  be 
remarked  that  he  did  not  vastly  differ  from  the 
Germans  themselves,  who  in  Clausewitz  pro- 
duced the  father  of  modern  military  theory. 
But  in  Foch  what  we  find  is  a  singularly  inde- 

[12] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

pendent  approach  to  a  doctrine  that  is  distinc- 
tively French. 

In  his  continuous  reference  of  military  situa- 
tions back  to  an  analysis  of  morale,  we  always 
find  a  morale  of  a  particular  type  presented  to 
us.  It  is,  indeed,  the  morale  of  Foch  himself, 
and  that  is  why  in  the  opening  lines  of  this  study 
the  figures  of  Bayard,  of  Turenne,  of  Desaix, 
and  of  Ardant  du  Picq  were  evoked.  The  char- 
acteristics of  French  military  courage  and  of 
French  morale  have  been  so  frequently  and  so 
vividly  typified  in  the  incidents  of  the  present  war 
that  they  do  not  need  to  be  specifically  set  forth. 
Every  reader  will  visualize  the  sharp  and  ener- 
getic profile  of  the  French  fighter  in  a  form 
markedly  different  from  that  which  he  would 
associate  with  the  British,  the  American,  or  any 
other  fighting  man.  With  a  touch  of  imagina- 
tion, a  dash  of  musketeer  combativeness,  a  ten- 
dency towards  disputatious  logic,  and  the  dry 
physique  of  the  swordsman,  the  French  fight- 
ing man  tells  his  own  tale. 

Foch  does  not  hesitate  to  force  the  note  on 
these  lines.  He  adopts  such  extreme  positions 

[    13   ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

as  that  embodied  in  the  statement  that  a  battle 
is  never  materially  lost  so  long  as  you  have  faith 
in  victory.  As  advice,  as  example,  as  an  indica- 
tion of  the  essential  attitude  of  mind  of  the  sol- 
dier, it  is  the  counsel  of  perfection ;  but  as  a 
doctrinal  exposition  of  modern  war,  it  somewhat 
obviously  leaves  a  good  deal  out  of  account,  such 
as  the  interplay  of  the  economic  factor,  which 
holds  such  a  large  place  in  the  most  advanced 
military  conceptions  of  to-day. 

When  Foch  applied  his  psychological  test  to 
the  operations  of  1870,  he  recognized,  as  was 
indeed  inevitable,  that  the  morale  of  the  Ger- 
man High  Command  was  to  a  large  extent  the 
determining  factor  in  the  operations.  He  does  not 
stint  his  praise  of  von  Alvensleben  for  his  superb 
handling  of  the  situation  at  Vionville-Rezonville 
on  the  1 6th  of  August ;  and  he  recognizes  that 
generals  perhaps  less  skilful  did  show,  in  this 
respect,  the  best  military  qualities.  The  truth, 
of  course,  was  that  Bazaine  and  his  staff  were 
incompetent  and  flaccid.  It  is  in  this  question 
—  that  of  the  morale  of  the  two  High  Com- 
mands —  that  Foch  attempts  to  summarize  the 

[   14] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

lesson  of  the  campaign.  And  this  much,  at  all 
events,  is  beyond  doubt,  that  had  the  armies 
of  France  in  1870  been  led  by  Foch  and  Joffre 
and  Castelnau,  the  results  would  have  been 
very  different. 

This  is  not  an  attempt  to  analyze,  and  far  less 
to  criticize,  the  military  theories  of  General  Foch. 
All  we  are  concerned  with  is  to  get  a  clear  view 
of  his  mentality  and  of  what  he  taught,  perhaps 
even  of  the  emphasis  in  what  he  taught.  That 
is  why  we  can  exclude  from  the  discussion  a 
whole  range  of  theoretical  matter  that  is  un- 
doubtedly of  importance  and  interest,  but  which 
General  Foch  himself  has  not  dwelt  on.  Two 
modes  of  thought  as  to  the  conduct  of  opera- 
tions were  in  presence  after  the  close  of  the  war : 
mass  strategy  and  linear  strategy.  The  French 
school,  searching  for  its  models  in  Napoleon 
and  sharply  rejecting  von  Moltke,  was  wedded 
to  the  theory  of  mass  strategy ;  and  over  a 
whole  generation  did  not  alter  its  views.  This 
governed  the  concentration  of  1914,  and  still 
has,  especially  in  certain  negative  ways,  a  deep 
influence  on  the  French  Command.    It  would 

[  »^] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

not  be  fair  to  pass  by  this  extremely  impor- 
tant matter  without  at  all  events  indicating  that 
there  is  here  a  field  of  discussion  of  purely 
technical,  and  not  psychological,  character,  into 
which  General  Foch  did  not  choose  to  enter 
very  deeply. 

In  teaching,  it  is  not  so  much  what  a  man 
teaches  as  how  he  teaches  that  matters.  One 
of  the  general's  former  pupils  declares  :  "  The 
officers  who  passed  through  the  6cole  de 
Guerre  between  1896  and  1907  will  never  lose 
the  impression  produced  on  them  by  their  pro- 
fessor of  strategy  and  tactics.  The  course  was 
eagerly  looked  forward  to  as  the  fundamental 
teaching  of  the  school.  .  .  .  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Foch  did  not  disappoint  their  expectation,  .  .  . 
he  impressed  them  at  once  by  the  energy,  the 
serenity,  and  the  honesty  of  his  face.  The  fore- 
head was  high ;  the  nose  straight  and  finely  cut ; 
the  eyes  gray  blue  and  direct.  He  stood  motion- 
less while  speaking ;  his  tone  was  one  of  author- 
ity and  conviction.  .  .  .  He  was  an  excellent 
teacher  because  he  had  a  passion  for  teaching. 
He  threw  himself  bodily  into  his  task  and  made 

[    '6] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

incredible  efforts  to  convince  his  hearers.  When 
directing  a  skeleton  or  map  manoeuvre,  he  put 
his  officers  through  a  veritable  course  of  intel- 
lectual gymnastics.  It  w^as  impossible  to  circum- 
vent him  by  approximations  or  compromises; 
he  always  held  you  up  by  his  famous :  *  Now 
what  is  the  point  ? '  .  .  .  Yet  this  analytical 
method,  pushed  to  an  extreme,  did  not  denote 
in  Lieutenant-Colonel  Foch  a  hesitating  spirit. 
.  .  .  To  his  intellectual  qualities  he  adds  com- 
plete self-mastery.  Like  General  Joffre,  he 
speaks  little." 

General  Foch  gave  to  his  students  the  best 
that  a  teacher  can  give,  and  that  is  example. 
He  was  an  enthusiast,  almost  a  fanatic.  His  pa- 
triotism and  his  profession  merged  into  a  splen- 
did effort  of  intellect  in  which  his  students  de- 
lighted. Nothing  could  be  more  cutting,  more 
merciless,  than  his  searching  out  of  the  German 
errors  of  1870,  and  nothing  more  inspiring, 
more  fortifying  than  the  national  sentiment  which 
behind  every  effort  of  critical  analysis  told  of 
the  hope  of  reversing  the  fortunes  of  war  and 
of  leading  the  French  Army  to  victory  over  an 

[  17] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

hereditary  enemy  by  mastering  the  study  of 
leadership.  Several  classes  of  young  officers, 
for  the  most  part  captains  and  majors,  carefully 
selected  for  their  high  attainments  from  the 
whole  of  the  Army,  sat  at  Foch's  feet  at  the 
ficole  de  Guerre,  and  carried  away  with  them 
an  unbounded  devotion  and  faith  in  the  man 
whose  teaching  they  had  been  privileged  to 
listen  to.  And  a  few  years  later,  when  the  Army 
had  settled  down  again  after  the  unfortunate 
troubles  associated  with  the  Dreyfus  case,  it  was 
these  young  officers  who  rapidly  came  to  the 
front  as  the  commanders  of  the  French  divi- 
sions for  the  war  of  the  immediate  future,  the 
war  of  to-day.  This  enabled  Foch,  in  part,  to 
realize  one  of  his  great  ambitions,  which  was 
that  the  French  Army  should  be  permeated 
with  a  sole  and  logical  doctrine,  that  which  the 
ficole  de  Guerre  had  taught.  And  it  was  from 
this  group  that  there  arose,  just  before  the  war, 
the  idea  that  in  the  next  conflict  the  French 
Army  must  necessarily  adopt  the  offensive,  the 
offensive  at  all  costs. 

Here  we  touch  again,  unfortunately,  a  diffi- 

[    18] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

cult  theoretical  question  that  must  be  left  on 
one  side.  Without  discussing  the  validity  of 
the  doctrine  of  the  offensive  at  all  costs,  it  will 
suffice  to  say  that  the  High  Command  of  the 
French  Army,  when  the  war  broke  out,  was 
almost  wholly,  though  not  quite,  composed  of 
officers  who  accepted  this  doctrine,  and  that 
during  a  certain  period  of  the  present  war  this 
doctrine  was  put  into  operation.  As  to  General 
Foch  this  much  may  be  said,  however,  that  he 
will  undoubtedly  attempt  to  show  us  at  the 
present  juncture  the  working  of  this  doctrine 
in  its  soundest  aspect.  While  maintaining,  as 
he  must,  the  best  defensive  that  can  be  organ- 
ized against  the  vast  weight  of  the  German 
armies,  we  know  that  he  will  seek,  and  seek 
with  the  keenest  vision,  for  any  point  in  the 
German  line  at  which  the  counter-offensive 
blow  can  be  launched. 

It  will  be  as  well  to  quote  here,  in  part,  an 
appreciation  of  General  Foch  by  a  distinguished 
French  officer  which  appeared  in  the  Corre- 
spondant  of  March,  1915 :  — 

[    19   ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

"  All  that  is  necessary  for  understanding  the 
personality  of  General  Foch  is  to  turn  over  the 
pages  of  the  works  in  which  he  has  condensed 
his  teachings  at  the  Ecole  de  Guerre.  They 
lack  something  of  the  warmth  .  .  .  which  gave 
such  vitality  to  his  teaching.  Yet  they  show  the 
man,  with  his  character  and  his  doctrine.  .  .  . 
How  does  he  attempt  to  formulate  his  theory 
of  war? 

"First,  he  lays  down  the  position  that  to 
estimate  only  material  factors  is  a  mistake.  .  .  . 
War  is  not  an  exact  science,  it  is  a  terrifying 
and  passionate  drama!  .  .  .  Between  knowing 
and  doing  there  is  an  abyss,  and  this  abyss  can 
be  traversed  only  if  we  start  from  knowledge 
and  not  from  ignorance.  .  .  .  What  we  need  is 
to  learn  how  to  think.  But  our  teaching  must 
aim  at  the  practical.  .  .  . 

"General  Foch  founds  the  art  of  war  on 
three  basic  conceptions:  the  preparation;  the 
formation  of  a  mass;  the  possibility  of  multi- 
plying this  mass  by  movement.  Does  modern 
war,  therefore,  mean  merely  a  return  to  the 
barbarian,  submerging  everything  by  numbers? 

[20] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

No,  for  we  will  introduce  in  the  employment 
of  these  masses  a  method  by  application  of  the 
principle  of  the  economy  of  forces.  These 
masses  will  be  distributed  according  to  neces- 
sity in  well-adjusted  combinations,  in  time  and 
in  space,  thus  affording  the  means  for  effecting 
the  concentration  of  numbers  on  the  selected 
point. 

"But  to  achieve  this  object  we  must  have 
liberty  of  action.  This  can  only  be  obtained 
by  increased  discipline.  On  this  point  General 
Foch  has  written  a  few  pages  that  will  live 
among  the  best  relating  to  military  duty.  In 
War  —  he  says — outside  of  the  general-in- 
chief,  there  are  only  subordinates.  While  al- 
ways thinking  in  terms  of  command,  their  first 
duty  is  to  obey.  But  to  obey  is  difficult,  for, 
quite  apart  from  the  enemy,  all  sorts  of  cir- 
cumstances arise  to  make  difficult  the  execu- 
tion of  the  orders  received.  To  surmount  these 
difficulties,  what  is  necessary  is  a  close  mental 
discipline,  but  intelligent  and  active.  A  chief 
means  a  man,  first  of  all,  of  high  character,  but 
also  a  man  who  can  understand  and  who  can 

[21    ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

adapt  things  so  as  to  obey.  .  .  .  Discipline  em- 
ploys an  active  mind  and  reflection  rather  than 
an  inactive  mind  —  the  silence-in-the-ranks 
business!  Discipline,  for  a  leader,  does  not 
mean  merely  the  carrying-out  of  orders  so  far 
as  it  is  possible  to  carry  them  out  fairly  or  rea- 
sonably; it  means  comprehension  of  the  ideas 
and  views  of  the  general  who  has  issued  the 
order,  and  all  possible  measures  taken  that  will 
help  to  carry  them  out.  ...  In  our  day  the 
man  who  thinks  he  can  live  without  ideas ;  who 
thinks  he  can  get  rid  of  what  he  calls  abstract 
ideas;  that  he  can  live  on  a  realist,  rational,  and 
positive  basis  and  reduce  to  mere  questions  of 
knowing  or  to  the  employment  of  expedients, 
more  or  less  ingenious,  for  getting  along  from 
day  to  day,  will  find  that  to  avoid  error,  faults, 
disaster,  there  is  but  one  way,  but  that  the  sur- 
est and  most  productive  —  the  exclusive  cult 
of  two  moral  abstractions :  duty  and  discipline. 
But  this  cult,  to  produce  good  results,  demands 
knowledge  and  reason. 

"Such  teaching  ranges   much  higher  than 
what  one  usually  finds  in  a  course  on  military  art. 

[22] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

<*He  carries  even  further  his  analysis  of  the 
broad  features  of  war:  The  difficulty  is  that 
you  always  have  an  opponent  opposite  you, 
who,  in  so  far  as  his  movements  are  free,  has 
one  supreme  idea,  which  is  to  counteract  your 
own.  Hence,  the  idea  of  security,  strategic  and 
tactical;  we  must  place  the  adversary,  and  fix 
him,  so  as  to  deprive  him  of  his  liberty  of  ac- 
tion. .  .  .  This  tactical  view  has  been  criticized 
as  somewhat  timid.  .  .  .  Foch  appeared  to  ex- 
aggerate the  principle  of  security.  There  has 
followed  since  a  rather  violent  reaction  against 
this  doctrine.  .  .  .  But  when  the  events  of  the 
present  war  are  finally  stated,  it  will  be  seen 
that  he  was  right. 

"This  attitude  on  his  part  was  not  timidity, 
but  well-reasoned  prudence.  In  reality  his  doc- 
trine was  purely  German,  such  as  is  found  in 
Clausewitz  and  von  der  Goltz,  that  in  war  there 
is  no  decision  but  by  violence  and  force.  .  .  .  To 
obtain  results  modern  war  sees  but  one  means, 
the  destruction  of  the  organized  forces  of  the 
opponent  which  is  obtained  by  battle.  This  can 
therefore  never  produce  results  unless  at  some 

[23] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

stage  or  other  the  offensive  is  adopted.  Ma- 
noeuvre is  necessary  if  we  are  to  apply  superior 
force  at  a  given  point ;  and  psychology  demon- 
strates also  its  necessity  for  obtaining  surprise  by 
the  sudden  appearance  of  a  danger  which  the 
enemy  cannot  ward  off.  .  .  .  When  we  under- 
take to  act,  it  is  this  moral  force  alone  that  will 
enable  us  to  dominate  events.  .  .  .  The  most 
essential  thing,  therefore,  in  his  opinion,  is  to 
form  the  mind  and  character  of  the  leader  so  as 
to  enable  him  to  surmount  the  difficulties  which 
await  him.  And  in  this  connection  he  quotes  Na- 
poleon, who  says  —  few  men  can  form  an  ade- 
quate idea  of  the  strength  of  character  that  is 
necessary  for  fighting  a  great  battle,  when  we 
consider  carefully  all  the  consequences  on  which 
may  turn  the  history  of  an  army,  or  of  a  nation, 
and  the  possession  of  a  throne.  .  .  .  General 
Foch  in  his  historical  examples,  never  fails  to 
emphasize  the  role  of  the  commander.  .  .  .  One 
of  his  qualifications,  which  can  only  be  secured 
by  study,  is  the  method  of  command.  It  does 
not  suffice  to  frame  a  brief  and  imperative  order 
which  suppresses  discussion;  .  .  .  the  mind  of 

[24] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

the  subordinate  must  be  informed,  because  a 
blind  obedience  does  not  in  itself  insure  a  rational 
and  logical  execution  of  the  order  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief. His  ideas  must  therefore  be 
explained." 

Before  concluding  this  brief  statement  as  to 
Foch  the  teacher  and  theorist,  it  may  be  allow- 
able to  make  a  slight  digression.  In  France,  and 
Italy,  and  Germany,  it  is  absolutely  recognized 
that  the  greatest  item  in  the  efficiency  of  an  army 
is  to  be  found  in  its  supreme  control.  With  us, 
although  things  are  rapidly  changing  for  the 
better,  an  army  is  still  popularly  visualized  as  a 
constabulary  force  in  which  the  matter  of  im- 
portance is  the  efficiency  of  the  man  who  waves 
his  baton  at  the  street  corner  or  dashes  after  a 
runaway  horse.  This  conception  will  have  to  be 
relegated  to  the  waste-paper  basket  before  our 
army  can  attain  a  high  efficiency.  The  principle 
at  stake  is,  at  bottom,  extremely  simple.  If  you 
place  a  poor  captain  at  the  head  of  a  company 
of  good  soldiers,  you  will  get  no  result.  If  you 
place  a  good  captain  at  the  head  of  a  company 

[25] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

of  poor  soldiers,  you  will  get  some  result.  If  you 
leave  the  good  captain  with  his  poor  soldiers  for 
a  very  short  while,  they  will  become  good  sol- 
diers, and  you  will  then  have  a  good  captain,  good 
soldiers,  and  the  highest  results.  And  this  repre- 
sents the  greatest  economy  of  life,  the  least  strain 
on  man  power,  and  the  most  successful  effort 
against  the  opponent.  From  this  conception  of 
the  captain  and  company  all  that  is  necessary  is 
to  extend  the  idea,  and  in  terms  of  geometrical 
progression,  upwards.  "The  need  for  knowl- 
edge increases  rapidly  at  each  grade,"  says 
Foch.'  The  good  major-general  means  a  divi- 
sion that  will  do  its  war  work,  and  a  highly 
trained  general  staff,  picked  from  the  best  brains 
of  the  army  and  put  through  special  stages  of 
specialized  studies,  will  mean  the  successful  con- 
duct of  war.  While  in  France,  and  Italy,  and 
Germany,  the  most  eminent  thinkers  and  teach- 
ers are  selected  to  supervise  the  classroom  in- 
struction of  the  best  officers  in  the  service,  we 
continue  to  neglect  this  fundamental  aspect  of 
military  training.  And  the  chief  reason  for  this 

'   Bougsson,  ^uatre  Conferences^  preface. 
[26] 


THE  TEACHER  AND  THEORIST 

is  that  the  average  citizen  is  still  imbued  with  the 
naive  conception  that  a  boy  who  has  been  put 
through  the  course  at  West  Point  Academy  is 
thereby,  in  some  mysterious  manner,  fitted  to 
conduct  modern  war.  The  fact  is  that  only  a  very 
small  percentage  of  officers  of  exceptional  abil- 
ity, who  have  studied  all  parts  of  their  profession, 
are  fitted  to  become  students  of  the  higher 
branches  of  the  art  of  war ;  and  even  then  the 
subject  is  so  difficult  that  only  the  best  teaching 
can  insure  their  thorough  competence,  or,  let  us 
say,  national  safety. 


HI 

THE  WAR 
We  have  already  seen  that  on  the  outbreak  of 
the  war,  General  Foch  was  at  the  post  of  dan- 
ger, at  Nancy.  Within  six  weeks  of  its  outbreak 
he  had  played  the  greatest  part,  under  General 
Joffre,  in  throwing  back  the  German  invasion. 
To  make  these  matters  a  little  clearer  it  may  be 
as  well  to  give  a  brief  account  of  the  relations 
of  France  and  Germany,  topographical  and  mil- 
itary. Nancy,  where  General  Foch  had  his  head- 
quarters as  commander  of  the  20th  Corps,  was 
right  in  the  very  narrow  gap  between  the  Vosges 
Mountains  and  Luxemburg  which  constituted 
the  real  point  of  contact  between  France  and 
Germany  in  a  military  sense.  Speaking  in  broad 
terms  the  frontier  between  the  two  countries  is 
extremely  short;  from  Luxemburg  to  Basle  is 
roughly  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles,  and  of 
this  distance  almost  one  half  is  covered  by  the 
very  considerable  military  obstacle  formed  by 
the  Vosges  Mountains.  There  was  never  any 

[28    ] 


THE  WAR 

great  likelihood  from  1871  down  to  1914  that 
Germany  would  make  a  serious  effort  to  push 
into  France  through  the  mountains. 

In  the  early  days  after  the  war  of  1870 
France  was  preoccupied,  almost  wholly,  with 
the  problem  of  defence.  The  question  was,  how 
could  she  reconstruct  her  army,  her  finances  ? 
How  could  she  secure  her  frontiers  against  an- 
other tide  of  German  invasion  ?  One  part  of  her 
answer  was  to  embark  on  an  elaborate  and  very 
skilful  scheme  for  fortifying  the  frontier,  a  meas- 
ure which  fitted  admirably  the  dangers  which 
1 870  had  made  clear  and  the  mood,  on  the  whole 
non-aggressive,  of  the  French  at  that  period. 
Had  war  broken  out  in  the  late  seventies  or  the 
eighties,  or  even  the  early  nineties,  it  would 
probably  have  taken  the  form  of  a  German 
attempt  to  repeat  the  events  of  1870  with  in- 
creased power  and  increased  speed,  with  the 
French  ability  to  resist  immensely  increased  by 
their  scheme  of  frontier  fortification. 

Yet  even  at  this  epoch,  let  us  say  the  late 
eighties,  there  was  a  grave  difficulty  in  the  situ- 
ation as  the  German  Staff  looked  out  from  Metz 

[29] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

towards  Verdun  to  the  west,  or  Nancy  to  the 
south.  Where  von  Moltke  had  been  so  suc- 
cessful in  1870  in  pouring  so  large  a  mass  as 
400,000  men  through  so  narrow  a  strip  of 
country  in  such  a  very  few  days,  how  could 
you  move  the  bulk  of  the  increased  German 
masses  through  this  same  strip,  now  heavily 
fortified,  without  risking  congestion,  slowness, 
and  ineffective  deployment? 

If  in  1890  this  was  still  a  question  of  the 
future,  by  1900  it  had  become  an  actual  ques- 
tion, for  at  this  epoch  the  development  of  fire 
effects  increased  very  rapidly,  and  the  theories 
of  the  German  Staff  rapidly  began  to  move  in 
the  direction  of  the  precise  calculation  of  frontal 
strains,  whether  for  attack  or  for  defence.  With 
the  development  of  such  intense  fire  and  with 
the  defensive  so  much  strengthened,  had  it  not 
become  possible  to  calculate,  almost  with  math- 
ematical precision,  the  number  of  well-trained 
troops  that  could  hold  a  specific  front  for  a  given 
number  of  hours,  or  even  days  ?  If  the  calcula- 
tion could  be  made  for  the  defensive  it  could  be 
at  all  events  attempted  for  the  offensive.  And, 

[30] 


THE  WAR 

indeed,  it  is  very  striking  to  note  that  the  den- 
sity of  men  to  the  front  does  not  appear  to  have 
materially  changed  from  the  days  of  Napoleon 
dovm  to  our  own ;  all  that  has  changed  is  their 
disposition  in  depth. 

Soon  the  German  Staff  had  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  difficulties  of  penetrating  France 
along  the  Metz  and  Verdun  line  were  almost 
insuperable.  To  get  a  deployment  that  would 
enable  them  to  move  their  masses  with  the 
greatest  velocity,  and  to  obtain  the  maximum 
offensive  power,  involved  striking  the  whole 
French  northern  frontier  from  the  North  Sea 
to  Basle.  Incidentally,  it  involved  a  breach  of 
the  neutrahty  of  Belgium  and  Luxemburg ;  but 
in  terms  of  international  relations  it  was  mis- 
takenly assumed  outside  of  Germany  that  the 
neutrality  of  these  states  would  be  observed ; 
and  the  French  soldiers  had  so  long  considered 
the  problem  of  the  Lorraine  frontier,  they  were 
so  admirably  prepared  for  a  defensive  on  that 
frontier,  that  they  were  unable  to  shift  their 
ideas  to  parry  the  coming  German  blow.  Dur- 
ing the  period  before  the  war  two  conflicting 

[    31    ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

currents  of  thought  appeared  in  the  French 
Army.  One  of  these  held  that  the  neutrality  of 
Belgium  was  sacred,  and  declined  to  consider 
the  logical  consequences  involved  in  the  linear 
strategy  of  von  Moltke;  the  other  attempted 
to  warn  the  nation  of  precisely  the  danger  that 
almost  overwhelmed  it  in  August,  1914-  In  this 
connection,  it  will  be  of  interest  to  note  the 
views  expressed  by  General  Foch  in  his  course 
at  the  ficole  de  Guerre :  — 

"Let  us  predict  the  future  from  the  past; 
and  apply  the  principles  of  von  Moltke  to  the 
concentration  of  to-morrow.  Shall  we  see  two 
German  actions  developed  ?  One  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine  and  the  other  on  the  Lower  Rhine? 
This  would  mean  two  attacks  instead  of  one, 
separated  by  so  long  a  distance  that  they  would 
be  unconnected.  This  is  not  worth  considering. 

*'  But  the  enemy  action  may  for  the  sake  of 
avoiding  our  fortifications  be  developed  along 
the  Lower  Rhine  through  Belgium  rather  than 
through  Alsace-Lorraine.  This  is  unlikely,  for 
the  first  object  of  the  concentration  will  bring 
together,  as  rapidly  as  possible,  all  forces;  this 

[    32] 


THE  WAR 

involves  the  largest  possible  use  of  the  railroads, 
of  the  disentraining  platforms,  etc.  The  con- 
centration will  therefore  take  place  in  the  dis- 
trict which  is  best  equipped  for  that  purpose. 
From  this  point  of  view  the  Lower  Rhine  is  not 
comparable  to  Alsace-Lorraine.  The  concentra- 
tion of  to-morrow  is  written  plainly  on  the 
ground  by  the  number  and  density  of  the  dis- 
entraining platforms.  These  platforms  are  in 
Alsace-Lorraine.  .  .  ." 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  was  before 
1901  that  General  Foch  emitted  opinions  ap- 
parently so  contrary  to  facts.  It  has  been  some- 
what unfortunate  that,  owing  to  the  conspicu- 
ous part  played  by  the  General  in  the  present 
war,  his  early  books  have  been  reprinted  with- 
out revision,  so  that  uninformed  readers  may 
suppose  that  he  held  these  views  down  to  the 
outbreak  of  hostilities.  This  is,  on  the  whole, 
very  improbable.  But  the  point  that  remains  is 
that  these  ideas  were  so  ingrained,  have  been 
so  authoritatively  taught,  and,  in  addition,  were 
so  convenient  for  political  reasons,  that  when 
the  war  storm  burst  the  French  concentration 

[  33] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

was  actually  carried  out  on  this  false  basis.  Five 
large  armies  were  massed  in  a  comparatively 
circumscribed  space  looking  mainly  to  the  Ger- 
man attack  through  Lorraine.  As  is  well  enough 
known,  it  came  through  Belgium. 

That  German  attack,  in  the  light  of  the  Ger- 
man theories  of  war  evolved  in  the  course  of 
the  preceding  generation,  proved  to  be  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  military  operations  on 
record.  It  failed  for  a  variety  of  reasons.  Among 
those  reasons,  as  we  shall  see  presently,  we 
shall  have  to  reckon  with  General  Foch;  but 
before  coming  to  that,  this  much  should  be 
said  on  the  German  side  of  the  argument,  that 
the  whole  manoeuvre  was  somewhat  over- 
theoretical  and  that  their  calculations  failed  at 
several  points.  The  problem  which  the  German 
General  Staff  had  set  itself  to  solve  was  how  to 
execute  a  huge  right  wheel,  with  Metz  as  the 
pivot,  the  line  being  intended  to  reach  a  north- 
east and  southwest  bearing  before  the  French 
mass  could  be  disentangled  from  its  Lorraine 
concentration  and  brought  into  line.  As  just 
stated,  the  calculations  were  wrong.    It  had  not 

[    34] 


THE  WAR 

been  foreseen  that  the  Russian  interposition 
might  lead  to  the  withdrawal  of  several  army 
corps  for  service  on  the  Eastern  Front.  The 
time  calculations  failed  in  that  the  extraordi- 
narily rapid  advance  of  the  marching  wing, 
while  none  too  fast  for  securing  the  desired 
position,  was  yet  so  rapid  that  the  alignment 
of  the  German  divisions  could  not  be  main- 
tained. The  immense  ammunition  and  supply 
requirements  had  not  been  accurately  foreseen. 
So  that  when  von  Kluck's  army  had  passed 
Paris  and  the  battle  of  the  Marne  was  engaged, 
there  were  already  weaknesses  in  the  situation 
of  the  Germans,  and  their  blow  was  half  spent. 
This  does  not  in  any  way  detract  from  the  im- 
mense achievement  of  General  JofFre  in  meet- 
ing them  at  that  point,  and  of  General  Foch  in 
playing  so  great  a  part  as  he  did  in  the  fighting 
that  occurred. 

With  the  patience  and  foresight  that  have 
given  him  so  unique  a  place  among  the  com- 
manders of  to-day,  Joffre  had  carried  out  the 
concentration  in  Lorraine,  refusing  to  disturb 
the  working  of  the  machine  until  the  process 

[35    ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

was  completed ;  he  then  succeeded  in  extend- 
ing the  mass  of  his  armies  southwestward  and 
in  connecting  them  with  the  group  made  up  in 
part  by  the  British  Army  of  Sir  John  French, 
and  of  the  great  mass  of  French  second-line 
troops  which  were  beginning  to  assemble  in 
the  city  of  Paris  under  General  Maunoury. 
Foch  was  given  the  9th  Army  to  command 
and  found  himself  roughly  in  the  centre  of  the 
line.  Joffre's  purpose  was  to  meet  the  German 
advance  by  a  counter-offensive  all  along  his 
front,  but  his  chief  object  in  this  counter-offen- 
sive was  to  concentrate  superior  forces  against 
the  open  German  right.  By  throwing  the  5th 
Army,  under  General  Franchet  d'Esperey,  the 
British  Army  and  the  6th  Army  under  General 
Maunoury,  against  von  Kluck,  he  certainly 
acted  in  accord  with  the  general  situation.  Gen- 
eral Foch  was  immediately  to  the  right  of  the 
5th  Army  in  the  district  lying  roughly  between 
Sezanne  and  Chalons-sur-Marne.  The  Ger- 
man line  was  weakest  on  the  right,  where  von 
Kluck  had  an  exposed  situation  with  a  consider- 
able preponderance  of  numbers   against  him. 

[36] 


THE  WAR 

It  was  strongest  in  the  centre  opposite  Foch, 
where  the  German  2d  Army  under  von  Biilow, 
and  part  of  the  3d  Army  under  von  Hausen, 
gave  the  enemy  a  local  superiority  of  numbers. 
Among  these  troops  were  the  Prussian  Guard 
divisions. 

Although  we  are  not  yet  in  possession  of  the 
documents  on  which  a  strictly  accurate  account 
of  these  events  can  be  written,  their  general 
shape  is  not  difficult  to  follow.  By  the  25th  of 
August  the  effort  of  Joffre  to  establish  a  line  be- 
tween Verdun  and  Paris  was  so  far  advanced 
that  the  Official  Communique  declared :  "  We 
have  escaped  enveloprhent  and  are  obtaining 
ourselves  on  enveloping  position.  Our  two 
wings,  in  contact  with  the  fortifications  of  Paris 
and  of  Verdun,  are  well  supported  and  in  a  posi- 
tion to  manoeuvre." 

On  the  4th  of  September  General  Joffre  is- 
sued his  order  for  the  counter-offensive,  in  which 
he  said,  among  other  things :  — 

"  The  hazardous  position  of  the  German  1  st 
Army  must  be  taken  advantage  of  to  concentrate 
against  it  the  efforts  of  the  Allied  Armies  on  the 

[37] 


GENERAL  FOCH    ' 

left.  All  dispositions  must  be  made  in  the  course 
of  the  5  th  of  September  for  attacking  on  the 
6th.  ... 

"  The  9th  Army  [Foch]  will  cover  the  right 
of  the  5th  Army  south  of  the  marshes  of  Saint- 
Gond  and  placing  part  of  its  forces  on  the  plateau 
north  of  Sezanne. 

"The  offensive  will  be  taken  by  the  various 
armies  on  the  6th  of  September  in  the  morning. 
—  Joffre." 

In  accordance  with  the  orders  of  the  Com- 
mander-in-Chief the  offensive  was,  in  fact,  be- 
gun on  the  6th.  The  gth  Army  took  its  part  in 
this  movement ;  it  was  made  up  of  the  9th  Corps, 
the  11th  Corps,  the  42d  Infantry  Division,  the 
Morocco  Division,  the  5  2d  and  60th  Reserve 
Divisions,  and  the  9th  Cavalry  Division.  These 
forces  were  attacked  by  the  Prussian  Guard,  the 
1  oth  Corps,  and  some  portions  of  the  1  sth  Corps, 
and  had  to  give  some  ground  along  most  of  the 
front.  On  the  following  day  the  fighting  was  of 
the  same  general  character,  the  French  holding 
their  ground  somewhat  better  and  on  the  left 
making  a  little  headway.  General  Foch  already 

[    38    ] 


THE  WAR 

had  in  mind  a  counter-offensive  stroke  on  this 
side  of  his  line. 

On  the  8th  the  fighting  continued  with  ex- 
treme violence  on  both  sides.  The  42d  Divi- 
sion gained  some  ground  on  the  enemy,  and  the 
German  Guard,  farther  to  the  east,  found  it  more 
and  more  difficult  to  gain  ground.  It  had  come 
almost  to  a  deadlock.  On  the  9th,  Foch,  who  had 
had  to  support  the  heaviest  attacks  delivered  by 
the  Germans,  was  reenforced  by  the  10th  Corps. 
Notwithstanding  this,  a  furious  attack  by  the 
Prussian  Guard  gained  the  enemy  still  further 
ground;  but  in  the  late  afternoon,  Foch,  mak- 
ing use  of  the  advantageous  position  he  had 
succeeded  in  keeping  on  his  left,  launched  his 
counter-offensive  on  La  Fere-Champenoise.  Al- 
ready von  Kluck,  farther  west,  had  found  it  im- 
possible to  maintain  his  positions ;  the  German 
Command  was  hesitating;  and  Foch's  constant 
counter-attacks  and  his  important  gain  with  the 
4 2d  Division  seemed  to  demonstrate  that  the 
German  effort  had  failed. 

That  night  Foch  issued  orders  for  a  counter- 
offensive  on  the  whole  front ;  and  in  the  morning, 

[39] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

at  every  point,  the  French  advanced  and  found 
the  Germans  in  retreat.  The  French  regained, 
in  the  course  of  the  day,  most  of  the  ground 
which  they  had  previously  lost,  and  headquarters 
were  rapidly  moved  forward  to  La  Fere-Cham- 
penoise.  The  Germans  apparently  made  up  their 
minds  to  leave  this  champagne-producing  dis- 
trict with  the  utmost  regret.  Officers  found  it 
difficult  to  liquidate  their  losses  and  preferred 
to  face  the  French  vintages  and  succumb  rather 
than  to  continue  an  ignominious  flight !  The 
French  Staff,  on  their  occupation  of  the  village, 
found  a  large  number  of  Germans  in  full  but  in- 
effective possession  of  a  field  of  bottles !  In  the 
course  of  the  next  few  days  the  movements  of 
the  two  armies  continued  on  the  same  general 
lines,  until  the  Germans  were  found  in  position 
within  the  lines  which  the}^  have  virtually  main- 
tained since  that  day. 

As  was  said  previously,  we  are  not  yet  in 
possession  of  very  precise  evidence  as  to  the 
events  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  but  there  can 
be  no  mistaking  the  significance  of  the  step  which 
General  Joffre  took  a  few  days  after  its  conclu- 

[  40  ] 


THE  WAR 

sion.  It  had  become  a  matter  of  urgent  neces- 
sity to  place  in  command  north  of  Paris,  in  the 
direction  of  Amiens  and  Calais,  an  officer  who 
should  check  the  German  effort  to  reach  the 
Channel ;  and  of  all  his  subordinates  engaged  at 
the  Marne,  he  selected  Foch  for  the  task. 

The  efforts  of  the  Allies  on  the  one  hand,  and 
of  the  Germans  on  the  other,  to  estabhsh  the 
best  possible  line  from  the  neighborhood  of 
Soissons  to  the  coast,  were  in  the  nature  of  a 
scramble.  It  was  largely  a  question  of  how  soon 
reserve  and  improvised  units  could  be  brought 
up  and  the  line  patched  in  this  way.  There  were 
several  moments  during  which  the  Germans 
seemed  to  have  great  opportunities  for  striking 
in  the  direction  of  the  Channel  and  securing  far 
more  advantageous  positions  than  they  were 
actually  left  with.  That  they  did  not  succeed 
better  was  due,  in  great  part,  to  the  keen  per- 
ception of  the  situation  by  General  Foch  and  to 
the  energetic  measures  he  took  to  repair  the  er- 
rors and  lapses  of  many  of  his  subordinates.  In 
this  connection  an  anecdote  is  told  which  may 
be  worth  repeating:  The  British  Army,  what 

[41    ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

was  left  of  it,  was  being  moved  back  from  Paris 
to  the  north.  A  considerable  part  of  it  was  being 
detrained  at  Saint-Omer.  Only  a  few  miles  to 
the  northeast  the  German  advance  had  reached 
the  valley  of  the  Aire,  and,  to  cover  the  British 
movement,  Foch  had  sent  to  that  point  a  cavalry 
corps  of  several  divisions.  If  the  Germans  should 
succeed  in  driving  away  the  cavalry,  the  British 
Army  would  be  seriously  threatened  under  con- 
ditions of  grave  disadvantage.  At  the  close  of  the 
day  General  Foch's  headquarters  were  rung  up 
by  the  cavalry  corps  commander.  The  General 
himself  seized  the  telephone.  The  corps  com- 
mander informed  him  that  he  had  withdrawn 
from  the  banks  of  the  river  Aire,  as  the  Ger- 
mans had  been  reenforced  with  infantry  and  ar- 
tillery. "  Did  you  throw  the  bulk  of  your  forces 
into  the  fight  ? "  —  "  No  ? "  —  "  You  will  imme- 
diately reoccupy  the  banks  of  the  Aire  ;  you  will 
line  them  with  your  machine  guns  and  artillery ; 
you  will  hold  the  enemy  there  to-morrow;  and 
when  all  your  guns  have  been  destroyed  or  cap- 
tured, you  will  report  to  Headquarters  for  fur- 
ther instructions."  Such,  at  all  events,  is  a  story 

[42] 


THE  WAR 

current  among  officers  of  the  French  Army, 
and  even  if  it  is  inaccurate  in  its  details,  it  cer- 
tainly seems  to  give  a  true  appreciation  of  the 
character  of  their  General. 

On  this  part  of  the  front  General  Foch  ren- 
dered the  greatest  services  in  the  winter  of 
1914-15  under  very  critical  circumstances. 
And  later,  w^ith  the  strain  somewhat  lessened, 
he  naturally,  inevitably,  turned  his  active  mind 
to  the  study  of  the  conditions  of  the  warfare 
that  was  being  developed  between  the  two 
armies. 

They  were  now  pretty  closely  dug  in ;  trench 
warfare  was  in  full  swing;  and  trench  warfare 
was  worthy  of  exact  and  scientific  observation 
with  a  view  to  achieving  the  greatest  possible 
results.  In  this,  as  in  other  fields  of  investiga- 
tion, Foch  showed  himself  to  be  one  of  the  real 
leaders  of  the  French  Army.  At  this  point  one 
general  remark  must  be  hazarded,  though  with 
much  reserve.  It  is  of  considerable  interest  to 
note  among  a  few  recent  books  on  military 
theory  by  French  and  German  writers  that  the 
Germans  insist  on  the  necessity  of  the  war  of 

[43] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

manoeuvre  as  a  standard,  while  the  French 
maintain  that  the  war  of  positions  is  the  only 
one  worth  discussing.'  Now,  at  bottom,  this  is 
largely  a  verbal  dispute.  Considerable  bodies 
of  opposing  troops  that  are  equally  well  trained 
and  well  supplied  with  the  material  of  war 
must  almost  inevitably,  when  in  close  contact, 
come  to  intrenching.  But  are  there  not  situa- 
tions in  which  armies  will  find  conditions  under 
which  they  can  manoeuvre?  The  real  answer 
to  this  seems  to  be  that  under  the  densely  pop- 
ulated conditions  of  western  Europe  this  is  ex- 
tremely unlikely.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
less  dense  conditions  of  eastern  Europe  and 
under  the  still  more  favorable  conditions  that 
exist  on  continents  like  the  African  or  Ameri- 
can continents,  manoeuvring  must  play  a  large 
part.  There  is  nothing  more  easy  to  understand 
than  that  the  officers  of  the  French  Army,  with 
the  German  incubus  reposing  on  their  shoul- 
ders and  a  front  so  restricted  that  it  can  be 

'  See  Azan,  The  War  of  Positions^  and  Loringhoven,  De- 
ductions from  the  World  War;  both  reviewed  in  the  Military 
Historian  and  Economist^  J"^y»  19 18. 

[   44   ] 


THE  WAR 

filled  with  troops,  should  be  convinced  that  the 
only  form  of  war  worth  studying  is  the  war  of 
positions.  But  the  reason  why  this  may  fairly 
be  described  as  a  verbal  dispute  is  that  at  bot- 
tom the  question  is  not  one  of  positions  or  of 
manoeuvring,  but  of  training. 

The  fact  appears  to  be  that  trench  fighting 
is  a  simple  form  of  fighting.  Superficially,  of 
course,  it  appears  very  complex  because  it  in- 
volves so  many  details  of  armament  and  of 
troop  adjustments;  but  the  point  is  that  the 
time  factor  is  very  much  reduced  in  impor- 
tance; that  position  warfare  is  slow;  and  that 
opportunity  is  given  for  the  preparation,  and 
indeed  in  many  cases  for  the  rehearsal,  of  the 
attack.  Under  these  conditions  of  preparation 
and  rehearsal,  troops  of  low  training  can  per- 
fectly well  carry  out  restricted  operations  of  an 
apparently  complicated  character.  Seen  more 
truly  these  operations  are  very  limited  in  scope, 
and  what  the  troops  do  not  acquire  is  the  ability 
to  solve  the  unexpected  problem  on  unknown 
ground.  It  is  only  the  highly  trained  corps  of 
officers,  and  therefore  the  highly  trained  army, 

[45] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

that  can  solve  any  tactical  problem  that  pre- 
sents itself  rapidly  and  under  unforeseen  con- 
ditions. And  it  is  that  form  of  training  that  at 
bottom  constitutes  the  quality  of  an  army.  It 
is  a  great  danger  to  admit  that  the  war  of  po- 
sitions is  the  only  standard  and  that  nothing 
more  is  necessary  than  to  prepare  troops  to 
play  a  part  in  such  a  war.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  as  has  already  been  said,  it  is  only  nat- 
ural that,  supporting  the  burden  of  the  war  as 
France  has,  with  no  margin  at  any  time  for 
doing  more  than  what  was  immediately  neces- 
sary to  keep  out  the  enemy,  she  should  have 
adopted  the  opinion  that  there  is  nothing  to  be 
foreseen  beyond  the  war  of  positions. 

In  1916  General  Foch  played  a  conspicuous 
part  in  handling  the  French  troops  engaged  in 
the  battle  of  the  Somme.  Soon  after  this  event 
General  Joffre  retired  from  the  command  of 
the  French  Army.  In  the  changes  that  took 
place  subsequently,  and  which  eventually  re- 
sulted in  General  Foch  becoming  Chief  of 
Staff,  the  ideas  of  the  ficole  de  Guerre  tri- 
umphed. As  a  result  of  these  changes,  Gen- 

[  46  ] 


THE  WAR 

eral  Petain  took  over  the  supreme  command, 
which  he  still  apparently  holds.  For  two  years, 
more  or  less,  1916-17,  Germany  adopted  a 
strictly  defensive  policy  on  the  Western  Front 
while  she  dealt  her  main  blows  at  Russia.  In 
the  autumn  of  1917  she  succeeded  in  breaking 
down  her  eastern  antagonist  and  in  obtaining 
some  sort  of  pacification.  This  placed  her  in 
the  position  of  being  able  to  resume  offensive 
operations  on  the  Western  Front,  strengthened 
in  numbers,  strengthened  in  the  experience  and 
selection  of  her  Staff,  and  strengthened  in  the 
development  of  her  war  material.  For  some 
time  the  gravity  of  the  situation  was  not  fully 
appreciated,  but  when  in  the  early  part  of  1918 
a  great  German  offensive  was  launched  on  the 
Western  Front,  it  became  apparent  that  the 
adjustment  of  the  command  of  the- Allies  was 
inadequate  and  would  have  to  be  remedied.  In 
this  crisis  General  Foch  was  sought  and  was 
placed  in  supreme  command  of  the  Allied 
Armies  in  France. 


IV 

THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

When  the  war  began,  the  French  Govern- 
ment, for  very  good  reasons,  decided  to  cover 
up  the  operations  of  its  armies  with  secrecy. 
No  casualty  lists  have  yet  been  published.  For 
a  long  time  no  mention  was  made  of  the  name 
of  any  general,  save  that  of  the  Commander- 
in-Chief  alone.  This  was  pushing  things  to  an 
extreme  that  was  both  unnecessary  and  diffi- 
cult to  maintain.  Presently  the  names  of  army 
commanders  became  known,  but  even  then  it 
was  difficult  to  know  much  of  the  part  they 
had  played. 

Yet  enough  has  become  public  property  to 
make  it  stand  out  very  clearly  that  of  all  the 
subordinates  of  Joffi:'e,  Foch  had  the  most  con- 
sistent record,  from  the  first  days  when  the 
Germans  were  thrown  back  from  le  Grand- 
Couronne  and  Nancy  to  the  moment  when  the 
present  crisis  was  reached.  Not  only  was  his 
record  the  most  consistent  of  that  of  any  of 

[48    ] 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

the  French  generals,  but  it  was  a  record  with 
a  special  feature,  and  that  was  that  it  stood 
best  with  the  English.  For  after  the  battle  of 
the  Marne,  Foch  had  been  charged  with  the 
joint  control  of  the  operations  that  had  saved 
Calais  and  Boulogne  from  the  German  invaders, 
and  had  directed  the  movement  of  Sir  John 
French's  army  towards  Ypres. 

He  already  knew  the  stiff  battalions  of  the 
old  British  Army.  He  had  followed  the  peace 
manoeuvres  in  the  eastern  counties  in  1912, 
and  had  then  noted  the  solidity  of  the  infantry 
units.  At  Ypres  he  met  once  more  what  was 
left  of  them,  and  indeed  he  was,  for  a  short 
while,  responsible  for  their  operations.  Always 
politic  and  always  a  gentleman,  free  moreover 
from  administrative  fussiness,  Foch  handled  a 
delicate  matter  with  tact,  judgment,  and  firm- 
ness. The  report  of  Sir  John  French  on  the 
Ypres  fighting  renders  more  than  merely  of- 
ficial tribute  to  the  work  of  Foch.  And  it  may 
be  said  that  from  this  moment,  he  was  the 
French  general  marked  out  as  a  possible  joint 
commander  of  the  Allied  forces.  The  British 

[  49  ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

Headquarters  believed  in  him,  appreciated  his 
courteous  and  unassertive  methods,  and  felt 
that  a  real  soldier  was  controlling  them. 

In  itself,  this  was  for  a  long  time  insufficient 
to  make  the  British  Army,  and  the  British  Par- 
liament behind  it,  willing  to  accept  any  proposal 
for  a  unified  control  of  all  the  armies  in  France 
under  a  French  general.  Yet  the  case  was  a 
strong  one.  The  French  Army  and  people  were 
bearing  the  brunt  of  the  struggle.  The  French 
Staff  was  better  trained  for  war  than  the  English. 
Germany  had  shown  from  the  outset  that  she 
regarded  the  French  Army  as  her  most  formi- 
dable obstacle.  If  that  army  should  be  crushed 
there  would  be  left  no  organized  force  in  Europe 
capable  of  stemming  the  Teutonic  tide.  But 
these  lessons,  valid  though  they  were,  could 
not  change  the  deep-flowing  currents  of  British 
thought.  Now,  as  so  often  before  and  through 
so  many  centuries,  the  view  of  England  was 
somewhat  narrowly  circumscribed  to  that  small 
strip  of  the  Continent  that  unrolls  its  men- 
acing estuaries  and  ports  opposite  the  Channel 
passage  and  the  mouth  of  the  Thames.    At 

[50] 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

all  costs  England  was  determined  to  fight  for 
control  of  this  region,  and  could  not  face  the 
suggestion  that  the  operations  of  her  army  might 
be  governed  by  other  considerations.  This  does 
not  imply  any  disloyalty  to  France.  England 
has  shown  herself  loyal  as  an  ally,  and  generous. 
It  merely  relates  to  a  certain  predominance  or 
emphasis  of  ideas  deeply  rooted  in  the  historic 
past. 

But  as  the  military  situation  became  increas- 
ingly serious,  so  a  popular  demand  for  unified 
command  arose.  Various  efforts  were  made  to 
satisfy  this  demand,  last  of  them  the  creation 
of  the  Versailles  War  Council.  The  fact  was 
that  there  was  as  yet  no  widespread  realiza- 
tion that  for  many  months  the  army  of  Ger- 
many had  been  merely  maintaining  a  defensive 
on  the  Western  Front,  and  that  the  release  of 
her  first  and  second  line  divisions  from  the  east 
meant  an  entirely  changed  situation.  Then, 
when  the  moment  came,  the  German  Command 
did  the  theoretically  correct  thing ;  in  face  of  all 
difficulties  it  launched  an  attack  at  the  point  at 
which  the  greatest  military  results  were  obtain- 

[51    ] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

able.  The  base  of  the  attack  had  to  be  extended 
over  no  less  than  80,000  yards;  and  the  num- 
bers had  to  be  placed  at  well  over  a  million  of  men. 
Elaborately  prepared  for  its  task,  and  employ- 
ing tactics  speedier  than  any  previously  shown, 
the  German  Army  struck  a  terrific  blow.  In  a 
few  days  it  got  to  within  a  gunshot  of  Amiens 
and  a  part  of  the  British  system  of  communi- 
cations. 

There  were  two  or  three  days  of  more  than 
anxiety.  Part  of  the  British  Army  was  broken. 
Confusion  pointed  to  imminent  disaster;  and 
then,  at  last,  the  step  so  long  desired  by  think- 
ing men  was  taken.  Ferdinand  Foch  was 
announced  as  Generahssimo  of  all  the  Allied 
Armies  in  France.,  The  appointment  met  with 
universal  approval ;  that  of  the  United  States  and 
of  General  Pershing  was  expressed  in  particu- 
larly warm  terms. 

Once  more  Foch  reconstituted  a  broken  front 
north  of  Paris  with  conspicuous  ability.  His 
troops  reached  the  danger  point  in  surprisingly 
short  time.  Infantry,  transported  by  motors, 
patched  up  a  line  with  the  help  of  British  bat- 

[52    ] 


THE  PRESENT  CRISIS 

teries  still  surviving  from  the  struggle.  Keep- 
ing steadily  northward  he  just  succeeded  in 
barring  the  road  to  Amiens;  and  when,  a  few 
days  later,  a  second  German  blow,  farther  " 
north,  fell  on  the  British  position  south  of 
Ypres,  again  French  divisions  seemed  to  drop 
out  of  the  skies  to  hold  Kemmel  Hill  against 
the  invaders. 

Since  then,  a  lull  has  spread  temporarily  over 
the  battle-field.  The  foggy  and  gas-stricken 
plains  of  the  Aire  and  of  the  Somme  see  the 
great  hosts  motionless,  while  from  the  North 
Sea  to  the  Adriatic  the  constant  rolling  up  of 
reenforcements,  of  supplies  and  of  munitions, 
indicates  that  an  even  greater  struggle  is  at 
hand.  What  human  wisdom  can  foretell  its  con- 
sequences, immediate  or  remote? 

We  cannot  expect  the  French  Army  to  bear 
its  disproportionate  share  of  the  Teutonic  load 
continuously.  We  must  not  expect  General 
Foch  to  perform  miracles,  even  though  we 
know  he  will  attempt  it.  As  soon  as  it  is  pos- 
sible we  want  to  bear  our  own  part  of  the  bur- 
den ;  first,  to  help :  then,  to  relieve  our  friends 

[53] 


GENERAL  FOCH 

and  allies ;  in  time,  to  assume  an  offensive  aimed 
at  the  heart  of  Germany,  to  bring  triumph  to 
our  just  cause.  Meanwhile,  we  stand,  in  such 
numbers  and  skill  as  we  can  now  muster,  joy- 
ously under  the  orders  of  Ferdinand  Foch.  We 
know  we  shall  find  no  better  leader;  whatever 
the  issue,  we  shall  cherish  his  long  and  proven 
record  as  that  of  a  great  soldier  and  a  great 
Frenchman.  Our  histories  will  record  our  pride 
at  having  fought  under  his  orders. 


THE  END 


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